AXA acquisition
On July 18, 1991, AXA Group of France bought a $1 billion stake in Equitable Life Assurance Society, for a 49% stake in the business. This enabled Equitable to set aside $500 million for losses in its real estate and junk bond portfolios. There had been rumors that Equitable was nearing a bankruptcy filing prior to the AXA Group infusion of capital.[14]
The investment by AXA Group significantly altered the trajectory of both companies. By 1997, the assets of the U.S. operation, the Equitable Insurance Group, had reached nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars, and by 2003, AXA Equitable Insurance Company was the leading carrier in the world with more than 50 million clients, in more than 50 countries, and with nearly a trillion dollars in client assets.[15]
By 2018, AXA, facing tougher European solvency laws, decided to re-balance its operations from life and annuities and towards property and casualty – from financial risks to insurance risks. As a result, the company decided to begin the process to spin off the U.S. operations, the old Equitable Life Assurance company. In its filing, AXA noted that once the IPO took place, there would be four separate companies created: AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, AXA Distribution Holding Corp., EQ AZ Life Re Company, and MONY Life Insurance Company of America.[16]
Equitable Holdings
In May 2018, AXA announced the successful completion of the IPO of AXA Equitable Holdings, raising $2.75 billion on the sale of 24.5% of the outstanding shares. Additionally, the company announced an issuance of $750 million of bonds mandatorily exchangeable into shares of AXA Equitable Holdings stock. And finally, $502 million of options were exercised, bringing the total to $4.02 billion in proceeds to AXA.[17]
On March 25, 2019, AXA announced the successful completion of a secondary common stock offering of 40 million shares of AXA Equitable Holdings, Inc. (ticker EQH), bringing down their ownership stake from approximately 60% to 48.3% and raising net proceeds of $1.5 billion.[18]
On November 7, 2019, AXA announced the sale of its remaining stake in AXA Equitable Holdings (EQH), selling 144 million shares of common stock to Goldman Sachs, which was the sole underwriter for the public offering of the shares. The expected close date was stated by the company at the time as November 13, 2019. This brought to a close a long and largely successful chapter in Equitable's history – the end of the AXA Group ownership of the company.[19]
On January 14, 2020, Equitable unveiled its new branding. In addition to an operating name change, the refreshed brand included a new logo, representative of the Greek goddess Athena, which has been a consistent element of the company’s 160-year-old visual identity.[5]
In March 2026, Equitable Holdings announced a merger with Corebridge Financial through a all-stock merger worth $22 billion, which would create a combined company with $1.5 trillion in assets under management and over 12 million clients.[20]
